Parliament has approved the nomination of Deputy Minister-Designate for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Mr Martin Adjei Mensah Korsah and three others.
The rest are Deputy Attorney-General and Deputy Minister for Justice, Diana Asonaba Dapaah; the Deputy Sanitation Minister, Amidu Issahaku Chinnia; and the Deputy Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Lariba Zuweira Abudu.
However, the approval of the four nominees, did not go down well with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority who staged a walkout in protest.
According to them, the nominees were vetted on the Green Ghana Day on June 11, 2021, when their members on the Appointments Committee of Parliament were in their constituencies.
The minority argued that the Chairman was unfair to their members on the Committee when he defied a directive by the speaker that all activities of the House be suspended to enable members to fully participate in the greening Ghana exercise.
The side insisted they will not support the four nominees and will not be part of the debate on the motion and walked out.
Majority’s response
Responding on behalf of the Majority Caucus, a former Minister for Works and Housing and MP for Abuakwa South, Samuel Atta Akyea, indicated that the schedule of the Appointments Committee predated the Speaker’s directive on the Green Ghana Day hence the Committee was compelled to sit.
“The Appointments Committee has a programme that predated the event of greening Ghana of the 11th of June. Therefore, every serious-minded member of the Committee would be bound by the programme which predated the greening Ghana exercise.
“It will be an utter bad fate for the Minority to say by reason of the tree planting, they are unable to come to do their parliamentary duty and therefore the whole programme of the Committee should be cancelled”, Mr Atta Akyea stated.
He argued that the fundamental issue is not about the vetting of the nominees but whether they satisfy the demands of Article 94 of the 1994 Constitution, which the nominees have.
According to him, it is not a rule of the thumb that if the Committee does not congregate at a place and vet a nominee that is the end of the matter.
The Minority, he said, must recognize and admit they abandoned their Parliamentary duties.
Minority’s claim
Giving reasons for their boycott, MP for Tamale North Alhaji Alhassan Suhuyini had stated that the action of the Chairman of the Committee, Mr Joseph Osei-Owusu who is also the First Deputy Speaker, was insincere and “very disrespectful not only to the Minority members but also to the Speaker”.
According to him, Committees that work in Parliament, do so at the pleasure of the Speaker, and if he wants them to work during holidays or recess he makes it clear.
“On 11th June, the Speaker gave no exclusion and directed all MPs to go back to their constituencies to support the government programme of greening Ghana.
“We obeyed the Speaker as members of the NDC side in Parliament and also as members of the Appointments Committee,” he stated.
The leadership of the Minority, he said, conveyed to the Chairman their decision to obey the Speaker’s directive and requested the 11th June vetting be postponed even if it meant the Committee took five nominees a day afterwards to fast track the vetting process.
“This, I believe, was a reasonable suggestion from a side that does not intend to frustrate government business.
“Unfortunately, the Chairman of the Committee decided to convene a meeting of the Appointments Committee without the presence of the Minority on the Friday of 11th June. As members of the NDC side on the Committee we believe they did so out of disrespect, not just to us but even disrespected the Speaker of Parliament.
The side, Mr Suhuyini said, will petition the Speaker to direct the Committee to revert the vetting and recommendations of the nominees.
